


when you lose the world

by Racebox_of_Higgars



Series: how quickly you can lose the world [2]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Angst, Drinking to Cope, Established Relationship, Hallucinations, Hopeful Ending, Kinda, M/M, Not Really A Happy Ending, Sad, Sad Spot Conlon, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, dead racetrack higgins, graveyards, i still dont know how tagging works, the major character death was last fic, this is just sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:54:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29678724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Racebox_of_Higgars/pseuds/Racebox_of_Higgars
Summary: Everyone around him is moving on, so why can't Spot? After all, it's been a year.Sequel to my fic 'as the world caves in', read that first!
Relationships: Spot Conlon/Racetrack Higgins
Series: how quickly you can lose the world [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2180856
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	when you lose the world

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is the sequel to my fic 'as the world caves in' and I would highly recommend reading that first, otherwise this won't make much sense. Enjoy!
> 
> TW for past character death, mentions of alcoholism, mentions of terminal illness

The graveyard was quiet, with only the sound of the rain against the gravel pathway. Spot was completely alone as he wandered through the paths, a route he had walked many times before. Nobody came to mourn. Spot didn’t expect to see anyone else there, as the rain soaked his skin, which he preferred. He would much rather grieve alone, rather than feel the pitying eyes of others on him. He needed privacy when he was here. He didn’t want anyone to see him break.

He crouched in front of the meticulously kept grave, already blinking tears from his eyes. Many other graves here had become overgrown and wild, but not this one, Spot wouldn’t let that happen. He set fresh flowers where the dying ones had been previously. Cyclamen, Race’s favourite. Carefully, he traced the name on the headstone, almost as if he were caressing Race’s cheek. If he closed his eyes, maybe he could pretend he had Race back, just for a moment. He could pretend they were still okay, that they still had forever. The illusion faded almost as quickly as it had come. The stone was too cold, too hard, too _lifeless_.

That was what felt so wrong about Race being gone. Race brought life and colour into Spot’s world, and since he… well, that was gone. Instead, it was dull and monotonous. He had gotten used to the grey by now, but that didn’t make it any easier. He didn’t get over the pain, he just made room for it. Slowly, he had learned to function with it, in some awkward, robotic way. He fell into a routine that he couldn’t break out of. Get up, go to work, come home, eat, drink himself into oblivion, repeat. It wasn’t the best way of coping, but the deep sleep helped. It was the one time he got to see Race.

_“Spot?” Race called in the distance. Spot’s heart rate picked up as he searched for him. Where was he? His voice echoed in the empty hallways; Spot couldn’t pinpoint the direction it was coming from. Everything was too bright, too clean. The halls were seemingly endless, and the only sound was the squeak of Spot’s shoes on the floor and the incessant beeping of a heart rate monitor. Spot hated that sound. Every door he passed was open, showing empty rooms._   
_“Spot!” Race yelled again, this time more desperate, yet his voice was growing weaker, more frail. “Please don’t let me go alone.” The last part was quiet, trembling, fearful. Spot simply ran faster, hoping, praying to find Race before it was too late. He couldn’t let Race be alone._

_He rounded one last corner, watched Race’s face break out into a smile as he saw Spot, but then it twisted. Life drained from his eyes, his pale skin turning a greenish-grey colour and rotting away. He was skeletal, emaciated, and his teeth turned black. What was left of his skin sagged off of his bones, and maggots squirmed in the holes left where it peeled away, eating away at his rotting skin. A white film covered his eyes, masking the bright blue Spot knew so well._   
_“This is your fault,” he rasped, voice hoarse. “You could have saved me.” He dragged himself out of the hospital bed and onto the floor, crawling towards Spot, who backed away, tears streaming down his face. Rats crawled out from under the bed, hundreds of them swarmed Race, completely blocking him from Spot’s view. They couldn’t block out the screams though. Animalistic cries of terror tore from what was once Race. Spot wanted to do something, anything to get them off of him, but he was frozen in place, as if he had been glued to the floor. He couldn’t save Race. He could never save Race. He was completely powerless. All at once, the screams cut off, and the hospital faded from view._

Spot would wake up gasping, with tears cascading down his face, but he smiled. He had seen Race smile again, just for a split second, and that was enough.

He pulled himself back to reality. He shivered, the rain soaked his clothes, and he ran his fingers over the headstone once more, pressing his forehead against it.

“Hey, Racer,” he whispered to the stone. “It’s been a year without you.” Had it really been that long? It seemed like Race had gone yesterday, but decades ago at the same time. Each day without Race felt like seconds and years, then they all blended into one. There was no life without Race. “It’s been… hard without you.” It had been so much more than that. Every day felt like a war with himself, a battle to drag himself out of bed, to work. Each night he would go to bed bloody and bruised from a day of fighting just to keep a smile on his face, when with each passing second he was falling apart.

“Are you happier now?” Spot asked the headstone. He hoped Race was happy. He liked to think that Race wasn’t hurting anymore. Spot didn’t believe in heaven or hell or any of that, but he liked to believe that Race was happy, wherever he was. That was the thought that got him through each day.

“I miss you,” Spot said, voice breaking. There was so much missing from his life since Race left. Race occupied all of Spot’s waking moments, and his dreams too. Images of his smile, fragments of his laugh, his bright eyes that were so full of life, that lost their life. Spot tried to hold onto images of Race before he got sick, but sometimes they would force their way in, and Spot would relive their last few months together all over again. It hurt, to see Race like that, knowing his last moments were in pain. Sometimes he wondered if he could have done something more, to ease Race’s suffering just a little.

“This sucks without you. Everything reminds me of you.” He would hear a laugh, carefree and wild, and for a split second he would think it was Race. A shock of curly blond hair had his heart racing, he would almost call out to the stranger, then he would remember Race was gone. He couldn’t go to forests anymore, memories of sneaking out and stealing kisses behind trees when they thought their friends couldn’t see or stargazing in the grass would overwhelm him. He saw Race in a crooked grin or cigarette smoke, in unrestrained laughter or swinging back in chairs, in ethereal golden hair or freckles. Race was everywhere, or maybe it was just Spot saw him in everything.

“I don’t know how much more of this I can take.” Spot’s voice broke. He leaned back against the headstone, letting the rain pour down his face to hide his tears. If he closed his eyes and focused hard enough, he could almost feel the weight of Race’s arms around him, the tickle of his hair on his nose. Maybe, just maybe, he could pretend he had Race back, just for a moment.

Spot opened his eyes. The area opposite the grave was clear, glowing under the sun. Spot looked across at the tree opposite him, and he couldn’t help the gasp that escaped him.

“Racer?” He asked, barely audible through his tears. Race nodded with one of his signature crooked grins, the one Spot had longed to see. God, he missed that. Race leaned with his back against the tree, head tilted toward the sky, his face bathed in golden light. He looked just as he had before he got sick, beautiful, his hair a golden halo upon his brow. His crystalline blue eyes were bright with life and warmth. He was angelic, untouchable, and somehow Spot knew if he tried to reach him, he would fade away. He was beautiful, as he always had been, but now he was unattainable, as if there was some barrier between him and Spot. There was a barrier between their worlds. Race couldn’t cross back to Spot, and Spot couldn’t go to Race. They would forever be stuck in this limbo, where they couldn’t reach each other, just see through the barrier.

“I miss you,” Race said. His voice had an otherworldly quality to it, and it seemed to come from all around Spot. It filled him with a sense of warmth, of longing. How long had he been desperate to hear Race’s voice again for? Now, here he was. He wasn’t Race, Spot knew that, but it was the closest he would get. He would take the little relief from the agony of not having Race that he could get. Whether that relief came in the form of alcohol-induced dreams, nightmares, or hallucinations, he welcomed it with open arms. He seized any reminder of Race’s grin or the sparkle of life in his eyes with both hands, etching it into his mind. He didn’t want to forget. Forgetting meant Race would be gone for good.

“I miss you too. It hurts, without you.” That was the understatement of the fucking century. Every day without Race was agony. Every morning he woke up and forgot for a moment that Race was gone, and then the realisation crashed down on him, and the torture would crash over him again. He wasn’t living, not without Race. He went through the motions of life like a phantom, simply existing, a ghost in the world of the people surrounding him. There was no joy, no love, no life without Race. He had taken all of that with him when he died.

“I’m sorry. You know if I had a choice, I would stay.” That was the problem though, wasn’t it? They never had a choice. They went through the years of friendship, months of a relationship thinking they would have forever, god, how naive they were. They always thought they’d grow old together, get married, get a dog or a cat, maybe have kids. Instead, they had been torn apart at just 17. They had plans, those were thrown out the window, crushed. They weren’t meant to lose each other. Since they were 11, they had been practically glued to one another, and then life came to tear them apart. Spot didn’t know how many times he had imagined what life could be like if things were different, if Race had a choice to stay.

“I know. It doesn’t make it hurt less though.” It didn’t make waking up to a cold, empty bed any easier. It didn’t make going to all Their Places less painful. It didn’t make hearing their song on the radio any less difficult. He had lost count of the number of times that had happened, and he had to pull over just to keep from crying. Everyone told him it would get easier with time, but that hadn’t happened. It still hurt like the wound was fresh, and waking up knowing he wouldn’t see Race just rubbed salt further into it.

“You’re allowed to move on. I don’t mind.” Everyone around him had started moving on. Albert, Jack, Davey, they were all getting back to normal, as if there wasn’t an empty chair where Race once sat, but Spot was still stuck. Nobody expected him to move on easily, but he saw the worried glances they shot him every now and then. He didn’t want their pity, he wanted them to remember Race. He was terrified that if he moved on, he would forget about Race. He refused to let himself move on. If he moved on, Race would just die all over again as the memory of him faded. Spot could see it now. It would start with not being able to remember the exact shade of blue Race’s eyes were, or the sound of his laugh. Maybe then the crooked grin he loved so much would go, or the way his tongue poked out slightly between his teeth when he was concentrating. Soon, Race would be a blurred image of someone he barely remembered, and he couldn’t let that happen.

“I don’t want to forget you,” Spot admitted.  
“As if I’d ever let you forget me,” Race said with a laugh, bright and clear. God, how Spot had longed to hear that laugh again. He knew it was just the product of his mind, Race wasn’t really there, but it was all he had, and he clung to it tightly. He wouldn’t let go; he couldn’t let Race go.  
“What if I do?” Spot asked, looking at Race, who fixed him with a stare, and intensity behind it that was so rare, even when Race was still there.  
“Then you forget me,” he said with a shrug. “You won’t, not completely, anyway. But you can’t put your whole life on hold for me, Spot. I’m not even here. You’re talking to a rock. You need to let me go, live your life. When was the last time you laughed?” Spot didn’t remember. “Exactly. Go out with your friends, let yourself live. Get drunk, but not to forget, to have fun. Meet new people, and don’t compare them to me. I don’t have regrets, Spot. Make sure you don’t either. Don’t miss out on life because you’re too focused on what I’d think. Above all else, I want you to be happy. I’ll always be a part of your life, Spot, but you can’t let me hold you back anymore. Live your life, like I wasn’t able to.” That stung, but Spot couldn’t help but think that maybe there was some truth behind Race’s - or were they his? - words. He had refused to let himself be happy since Race died, thinking it would be an insult to Race’s memory, but maybe he was wrong. Race had always talked about living life to the fullest while he could, so why wasn’t Spot? If he had learned anything from losing Race, it was that anything could happen, and he could never be certain of how the future would play out. Race would want him to be happy, above all else. That was the true insult to Race - that he wasn’t allowing himself happiness. Maybe, just maybe, he could let a little bit of that in. He could live the life Race would want him to.

He could be happy. He wouldn’t be losing Race by doing that.

He would do it _for_ Race.

“I love you, don’t forget that,” Race said with a smile, slowly pushing himself to his feet. The sun behind him formed a halo of gold around him, and Spot fell in love with him all over again. Nothing hurt quite like falling for someone who was already gone, but there he was. It was a bittersweet kind of hurt though. He knew he would never stop loving Race, but he could make room in his heart for others too. Race was always going to be his first love, but he didn’t have to be his last. It didn’t need to be something romantic, Spot definitely wasn’t ready for that, but he could love. Race wasn’t going anywhere.

“I love you too. I always will.”

“Be happy, Spot. Even if you do nothing else, just make sure you’re happy.” The image of Race faded into rain, the sun vanishing with him. The rain wasn’t cold anymore, though. It was comforting, like Race was still holding him.

“Be happy, Spot.” He could do that. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could do that.

He could be happy. There would be difficult days when he would feel like the world was crashing down around him, but they wouldn’t be every day.

Someday, Spot would be happy.

For Race.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I hope you enjoyed. There will be two more fics in this universe at some point so keep an eye out for those. I'm on tumblr as Racebox-of-Higgars if you want to scream about these boys or send me a fic request. Thanks for reading!


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